


Phoenix

by Android_And_Ale



Series: The Hero of Nova Herculania [7]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: All's Wells that Ends Wells, Best worst meet-cute, Cisco's real superpower is being a damn engineer, First Kiss, Harry and Wells 2.0 share a secret, Has everyone in the multiverse met Reverb?, Horrible minds think alike, Love at First Sight, M/M, Mad Science, Or just all the evil people?, Prison Break with no guest appearance by Snart because god doesn't love you that much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 15:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13884135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Android_And_Ale/pseuds/Android_And_Ale
Summary: “I can’t let you do this, Vibe,” said Inquisitor West. “Hadrian is a danger to everyone. Most of all to you. So please don’t make me shoot you.”The legionnaires behind her held a mix of pulse tasers, net guns, and needlers. The Inquisitor herself aimed an old-fashioned, un-networked slug thrower at Cisco’s head. Smart. It was purely mechanical, with no electronics he could hack. A single low-tech bullet would end this now.“You don’t have to worry, Iris.” Cisco stalled for time. “I’m taking him somewhere he can’t hurt anyone.”“You mean like prison!” Iris demanded.“Seriously, Vibe?” Hadrian looked down at Cisco, disappointed. “What’s the point?”“Stop ruining your own rescue,” Cisco hissed.





	Phoenix

Only two weeks left until the trial. Harry and Wells 2.0 were holed up in the workshop, frighteningly getting along for once. Cisco tried not to imagine what those two had planned for Hadrian, but it had to be better than a death sentence. Well, he was 85% sure. A hard 72%. Really, the less he thought about it the better.

Cisco took a deep breath and opened a breach. He tossed in a one-way mechanical breach medallion of his own design and waited 60 seconds.  

Nothing happened.

He sighed. It looked like he’d have to do this the hard way.

“Are you ready?” He tapped the oversized wrist watch Eobard used to hide his portable, compact install of Gideon.

Gideon’s voice was smooth and calm in his ear. “I’ll need approximately 48 seconds to disable the pertinent parts of the prison without freeing their most dangerous criminals.”

“Are you sure?” asked Cisco. There were some really dangerous people in that prison. He knew. He put them there.

“Their network is completely unprepared for an AI of my sophistication,” Gideon replied.

“You’re so humble,” said Cisco.

His hands fluttered needlessly over his own utility belt. His powers would be useless until Gideon could shut down the meta dampeners in Hadrian’s cell. A lot could happen in 48 seconds. Luckily, long before he became a meta, he was an engineer.

“Are you certain you want to do this, Mr. Ramon?” asked Gideon.

He wasn’t, but rather than admit that to the AI he opened a breach and jumped through.

The silence brought him to his knees. He gasped as his senses stretched out, desperately searching for the vibrational pattern of this universe. This must be what the heat death of the universe is like, he thought. No motion, no movement. Only cold.

“There you are, Hero.” Hadrian’s voice snapped him back to the present. His hands were cuffed together in front of him, his feet shackled to the stone wall on a meter and a half of heavy chain. Someone gave him a sharpie which he’d used to draw fake embroidery around the hem of his orange prison tunic. Cisco expected sarcasm or spite, but Hadrian’s warm, sunny smile lit up the cell.

Before Hadrian could ruin the moment, his voice was drowned out by sirens. Cisco could hear the slap of leather boots against stone floors as guards rushed to Hadrian’s cell. He pulled what looked like a dental floss dispenser out of his utility belt and looped two thin wires around the chain holding Hadrian’s right leg to the wall.  He pulled once, hard. The wires instantly heated and vibrated, melting the dense metal chain into a dangerous puddle that immediately ate into the stone floor.

The door flew open. Hadrian took a step forward, blocking Cisco with his own body. “Stop being such a drama queen!” Cisco shouted over the alarms. From where he knelt, Hadrian’s pose made it look like Cisco had just breached in to blow him.

Inquisitor West stared sadly at Cisco. She waved a hand and the wailing sirens went silent, though the flashing warning lights continued. “You know we’re expecting you, Vibe.”

He leaned around Hadrain’s legs, faking a cocky smile he didn’t feel. “Sorry to be so predictable, Iris.” He dropped the single use wires and pulled a second set from the repurposed dental floss container.

“Cut that out!” Inquisitor West stomped across the room.

Before she could kick Cisco away from the chains, Hadrian shouted, “Stop! Right there! Look down, Inquisitor!” The discarded wires had burned a narrow, smoking hole in the floor. Hadrian gingerly pushed a fingertip against her shoulder. “Back away from the molten stone.”

She stared down at the thin line of melting stone in horror. “Poseidon's salty balls.”

Cisco channeled his inner cocky bastard as he held the safe ends of the remaining wires. He stared her down, eyes hard, hoping she didn’t realize he only had 9 seconds before this set of  single use wires would burn all the way from the nearly molten center to the tips, taking off his fingers if he didn’t drop them. He let out a breath as she took a single step back. He shrugged apologetically as he flung the wires onto the ground between them.

“I can’t let you do this, Vibe,” she said. “Hadrian is a danger to everyone. Most of all to you. So please don’t make me shoot you.” The legionnaires behind her held a mix of pulse tasers, net guns, and needlers. The Inquisitor herself aimed an old-fashioned, un-networked slug thrower at Cisco’s head. Smart. It was purely mechanical, with no electronics he could hack. A single low-tech bullet would end this now.

“You don’t have to worry, Iris.” Cisco stalled for time. “I’m taking him somewhere he can’t hurt anyone.”

“You mean like prison!” Iris demanded.

“Seriously, Vibe?” Hadrian looked down at Cisco, disappointed. “What’s the point?”

“Stop ruining your own rescue,” Cisco hissed.

He didn’t need Gideon to tell him she’d completed her work. As the prison cell’s meta dampeners went offline, Cisco felt the warmth of familiar vibrations humming through every cell of his body.

“Iris.”

Cisco held up a hand. She shot him. As the muzzle flared a breach opened between them. The bullet harmlessly entered the breach and exited out a new one just inches from Iris’s ear. Cisco pulled Hadrian to his knees and opened a new breach flat on the stone floor, somersaulting them both forward into it. As he disappeared, he threw a combination EMP and blinder grenade behind him. The legion’s screams cut abruptly short as they rolled out of the prison cell and onto the floor in the middle of STAR Labs Cortex.

Hadrian kept them rolling until he was on top of Cisco, grinning widely. “My hero.” He straddled Cisco’s hips and leaned down, burying a hand in his hair as he kissed him, hard. “I knew you’d rescue me.” He pulled down the zipper on Vibe’s leather jacket.

Across the room, Harry loudly cleared his throat. Wells 2.0 stood beside him, mouth pulled into a tight, calculating line. Cisco awkwardly squirmed to get out from under Hadrian and straighten his clothes.

“You have half an hour to get cleaned up,” said Harry. “I suggest you make it good.” He tossed Hadrian a familiar black tunic.

“Are you taking me to dinner?” Hadrian leered.

Harry pulled a worn photograph from his jacket. His thumb moved over the face one last time, then he tossed it at Hadrian. His doppelganger sat up, wide eyed. He stared at the photograph for a moment before looking up to Harry for confirmation that this was real. Harry nodded once.  “I’d say be on your best behavior, but this time? Bring out your worst.”

* * *

The breach opened into a messy operating theater, straight out of a mad scientist playbook. The wall was lined with shelves of organs in vacuum sealed plastic bags; the hearts still beating, the lungs still filling, as each organ was kept independently alive via a series of air and fluid filled tubes plugged into a borg-like cube. One of the tubes was plugged into Wells 2.0.

Hadrian was incapable of showering, shaving, and doing his makeup in less than two hours. Wells 2.0 said that was fine. More time for him to smooth things over before the big showdown.

They found the cyborg standing next to an operating table. A tube stretched from one of his implants into the thing on the table, pumping it full of milky white fluid filtered through Wells own body. He stared dispassionately at the work. One hand held a scalpel. The other, a blood smeared, ostrich sized golden egg.

Opposite him was a lanky blonde woman who’d reached an age when people referred to her as handsome rather than beautiful. Her hair was pulled back in a single long, practical braid, keeping it out of the way. She was elbow deep in an unfamiliar winged creature, removing or perhaps reshaping organs to make room for the massive golden egg. It’s head turned to Cisco, glazed eyes open, and blinked. He spun around and vomited on the floor.

“What the hell, Reverb!” She looked up from the operating table, glaring hard.

Cisco wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and turned to Harry. “What she said.”

“Oh. A new one.” Cisco staggered back as her glittering compound prosthetic eyes narrowed. “And you brought friends.” She looked annoyed at Harry and Hadrian’s appearance in her operating theater.

“Theresa?” Hadrian stepped forward, eyes wide with shock.

The blonde rolled her glittering, compound eyes. “I’m not your dead wife.”

“No.” He stared enviably at Wells 2.0 working seamlessly alongside her. “He’s a lucky man.”

Wells 2.0 barked a single laugh. “She ain’t my Jesse’s mum. Hells Wells and Harry over there sent me to talk to her ‘cause neither of those gauze stomached bastards can spend more than ten minutes with Dr. Morgan.”

“I made a functioning stomach out of gauze once,” said Theresa Morgan. “Once the acid ate through the protective gel lining it took the recipient three days to die.” She smiled nostalgically at the memory.

“We need to go.” Cisco grabbed Hadrian and Harry’s arms. Hadrian shook him off, drawn moth-like to Dr. Morgan.

Blood squished wetly under his leather boots. He stopped next to the table, idly stroking the creature’s head. It closed its eyes and leaned up into his touch. “What are you making?”

“A Phoenix.” Dr. Morgan’s smile was all teeth and no humor.  

“Don’t those explode into flames when they lay an egg?” Cisco asked.

Dr. Morgan’s predatory smile widened. “It damn well better.”

Wells 2.0 handed her the massive golden egg. Up close the ornate pattern of engravery seemed designed to create maximum shrapnel when it exploded.

“It’s stunning.” Hadrian was breathless with admiration. “Where are you sending it?”

She looked him in the eye for the first time. “Parliament. It’s my personal gift for the ascension of the new Tzar.” Hadrian stared back, lost in the iridescent glitter of her compound eyes.

Cisco flinched. He’d seen that look on Hadrian’s face, but never directed at anyone other than himself. This was good. No, not good. Frightening. But somehow also right. It still hurt his heart a little.

“Have you designed an inflammable, impact resistant tail feather yet?” asked Hadrian. She raised an eyebrow at him, listening. “I like to roll with the full poetry of my messages.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Something the survivors will fight over.” Hadrian shot her his best predatory grin, all teeth and hunger. “That draws blood from anyone who holds it.”

Wells 2.0 reached into the borg-like cube for another tube. In a single fluid motion he disconnected himself from the animal-in-progress while plugging it into the device.  “Told’ya he’d fit in.” He tossed Hadrian a pair of surgical gloves and nodded for him to take his place.

“If you regurgitate on my floor I’ll rip your eye from your socket and pour the vomit into the hole.” Her tone was light and cheerful.

Hadrian pulled on his gloves. “What’s your target spread? Single individual or the entire parliament?” He stroked one of the feathers. “These can be easily supplemented with lightweight serrated blades that’ll eject up to 25 meters on impact.”

“He’s got this, Dr. Morgan. I’m gonna catch my ride home.” Wells 2.0 dropped his gloves at the bottom of the table and sauntered over to Cisco and Harry. He gave Harry’s upper arm a surprisingly kind squeeze. “First time seein’ her in the flesh, eh mate?” he whispered.

Harry nodded. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Tess Mogan since they breached into her surgical theater. “I’ve known she was here for years, but…” his hands waved, taking in the mess of organs, sharpie scrawled propaganda posters, chimera animals, and machinery.

“Good on ya, mate.” Behind them, Hadrian and Dr. Morgan chatted excitedly about weaponizing feathers while he helped her install the golden egg. Wells 2.0 lay one hand on Harry’s shoulder and the other on Cisco’s. “Better to live in the present.” He squeezed their shoulders, gently tugging Harry to look at Cisco. His body twitched, but his eyes were still on Tess.

“Open us a breach, Cisco.”

Cisco looked at Harry. “Do you want to say hi to her?” he whispered.

Harry continued staring at Tess. His eyes thirstily drank her in, but his hand groped blindly for Cisco, landing awkwardly on his ribs before finding his forearm. “Do as he says, Ramon.”

Cisco awkwardly pat Harry’s hand before pulling away. He held up both fists and a swirling blue and silver portal appeared, obscuring both the sight and sounds of the operating table. Cisco looked over his shoulder.  “Are you sure, Harry?”

Harry silently strode into the breach.

Wells 2.0 nudged Cisco’s back, knocking him off his balance. They staggered through the breach together.

“Now that mess is over I’ll be finding yer Jesse, then,” said Wells 2.0. “She wants pointers on biomechanical spinal interfaces.” His body hummed softly as he sauntered down the corridor, leaving Harry and Cisco alone in their STAR Labs workshop.

“What.” Cisco’s eyes were round. He worked his jaw a few times, starting and stopping sentences. “What did we just do?” His soft voice shook.

Harry shoved his hands in his pockets. “You asked me to solve your Hadrian problem.”

Cisco paced the length of the room. “Was that Jesse’s mom?”

“No,” said Harry. “But she is a doppelganger of Dr. Tess Morgan.”

Cisco stopped. He chewed his bottom lip, half afraid of asking the question pounding in his chest. “How long have you known about her?”

“Yours wasn’t the first Earth I found. I knew of fifty two more before Zoom picked yours for conquest. Hers was my Earth twelve.”

Which meant Harry had known about her for at least three years.

Cisco swallowed hard. “So why aren’t you the one settling down with her?”

Harry snorted. “Because she’s evil.” He finally met Cisco’s gaze. Cisco wished he hadn’t.

“A little misguided, maybe.” Cisco wasn’t sure if he was being defensive on Tess or Hadrian’s behalf. After the last year it was reflex.

“No,” said Harry. “She’s badly broken. The loss of … me. The loss of STAR labs. It did the same thing to her that it did to Hadrian. She’s duct taped herself together with sticky revenge fantasies that play into her own death wish.”

“You could’ve given her a second chance at love,” said Cisco.

Harry sighed. “I told myself that. At first. We all did. The whole council. So I kept her in my back pocket. For years. Just in case. Some days, knowing she was out there made it easier to breathe.” His gaze flickered up from the work bench to Cisco and back down again. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “But now I know who she’s really meant to be with. And it isn’t me. They have a second chance.”

“They’ll ruin it,” said Cisco. “They’re already plotting. I don’t know what they’ll do after blowing up her parliament, but it won’t be free puppies for everyone.”

“Not unless they’re carrying rabies,” Harry replied. “But at least they’ll be happy together. Until they get themselves killed.”

Cisco stepped forward, stopping just outside Harry’s personal bubble. “What about you?”

Harry stared at Cisco’s ridiculous shoes. He leaned forward, bracing a hand on Cisco’s shoulder without looking up. “My Tess will always be a part of me, but I mourned her a long time ago. Those two never mourned one another.” He took a half step forward, his other hand coming up to rest on Cisco’s opposite shoulder. “I don’t need to wallow in my past. I’d rather embrace my future.”

Cisco pulled him into a tight hug. “You’re a really good boyfriend.” He buried his face in Harry’s chest, inhaling the familiar musk of his Earth 2 cologne. He’d sworn Team Flash to secrecy about the fact that cologne was out of fashion for men on their Earth.  At first it was a joke, but now he wanted, he needed Harry to smell like himself. Sharp and musky with hints of industrial lubricant and solder and some unidentifiable Earth 2 spice.

It took three long, slow breaths before Harry moved. When he did, he slowly wrapped his arms around Cisco and gently stroked his hair. “You’re welcome.”

Cisco held on until it was well past the point of awkward. Harry still hadn’t pushed him away, so he loosened his arms and leaned back just far enough that he could see Harry’s face.

Harry stared at Cisco’s mouth, at the line of hair tucked behind one ear, at the faint flush of red on his cheeks. Anywhere but his eyes.

Cisco’s breath caught. He’d thought about this for longer than he cared to admit. Now felt right. At least, as right as things were ever going to get between the two of them.

They’d confessed their feelings. Harry managed to simultaneously make an incredible gesture while also getting rid of the competition, which said a lot about how smart he was. But most of all, Harry was here, and warm, and trustworthy.

Cisco cupped his cheek. He swallowed hard as he slid a fingertip around Harry’s ear, hoping to lure him downwards.

Harry stared at him for a long moment, calculating. Too many seconds passed. Cisco turned away, cheeks flushed, though his fingers lingered as he took a step back.

“I’m not him,” Harry said.

“Merciful gods,” Cisco muttered. “I’ve had enough of his brand of drama for a lifetime.”

“I have no interest in being his replacement,” Harry continued.

Cisco shook his head, sighing. He stared at the floor. “If I’m being honest, Harry, he was always a replacement for you.”

Harry closed the gap. Cisco’s head snapped back as Harry’s fingers sank into his hair, pulling gently. He felt like a Pez dispenser, open and ready for whatever Harry wanted to stuff inside him. Familiar lips brushed over his own. Cisco shuddered. As his eyes closed, everything familiar dissipated under the novelty of Harry’s touch.

Harry’s lips were chapped. Their teeth clashed as he smothered Cisco in an open mouthed kiss, tongue jabbing too deep, too hot, too wet and earnest as it filled Cisco’s mouth. By romance novel standards everything about it was wrong. But after three years of pining, it was the best first kiss of Cisco’s life.


End file.
